Battling pedestrian 'death sentence'

Vehicle occupants well protected; what about those on outside?

An inflated pedestrian airbag at the new Volvo V40. The airbag is located under the bonnet, close to the windscreen. If the car hits someone while traveling between 20 kph (12 mph) and 50 kph (30 mph), an air bag slips out from where the car hood meets the windshield as an impact with that area is responsible for many head injuries when pedestrians slide up the cars hood in an accident.

WASHINGTON -- Occupants of a car are protected by seatbelts, airbags and dashboards devoid of sharp objects. A pedestrian's only defence generally is to get out of the way.

More than 4,000 people are killed and 70,000 injured each year in the United States when hit by cars. Typically they're struck in the legs and thrown onto the hood. Their bodies slide until their heads smash into the windshield-wiper arms, the windshields or both.

With U.S. regulators considering rules or incentives to make pedestrian accidents more survivable, Honda and Volvo have led automakers making design changes that bring safety advances to the outside of vehicles.

They include breakaway wipers, hoods with space between them and engines to absorb impact energy, and exterior airbags designed to keep a pedestrian's head from hitting the windshield.

"A pedestrian that's hit by a car, it doesn't have to be a death sentence," said Jacqueline Gillan, president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.

The number of pedestrians killed in U.S. traffic crashes declined from 4,892 in 2005 to 4,109 in 2009 before rising again to 4,432 in 2011, the most recent year available from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Fourteen per cent of people killed in crashes that year were pedestrians.

In Japan, pedestrian deaths are about a third of traffic fatalities. That led Honda, based in Tokyo, to make design changes to vehicles it has brought to the U.S., said Doug Longhitano, a U.S.-based Honda safety research manager.

Fenders on Honda or Acura models sold in the U.S. are offset from the frame, as are hoods from engines, to provide some limited cushion if a pedestrian is hit. Windshield wipers are designed to break away so they don't gouge a person on impact, Longhitano said.

Those design changes have been standard on Honda and Acura vehicles sold in the U.S. since 2008.

Volvo, the Swedish carmaker owned by China's Zhejiang Geely Holding, introduced the windshield airbag as standard equipment on its V40, which isn't available in the U.S., for the 2013 model year, said Laura Venezia, a U.S.-based spokeswoman.

General Motors includes space between the hood and engine to provide a buffer, said Heather Rosenker, a spokeswoman for the Detroit-based company.

Auto regulators are working on global pedestrian safety standards that could be adopted into a U.S. regulation, NHTSA administrator David Strickland said, declining to give a timeline.

"It's a two-step process, but traditionally speaking, those global technical regulations are very close to what will ultimately result in a final regulation here in the United States," he said.

If regulators include pedestrian safety in their safety-rating system, they could choose to give an incentive to vehicles that perform well in crash tests or that include particular technologies or designs, Strickland said.

While they may also save lives of bicyclists, the studies and automaker design changes are specific to collisions with pedestrians.

Europe first set pedestrian-protection requirements in 2003. Last December, it added more stringent requirements for how vehicles perform in pedestrian crash tests for the bumper, hood and its edge and windshield.

The European Union has even stricter performance requirements set to take effect in 2015.

Japanese automakers changed hood designs to comply with required tests in that country for pedestrian head injury.

In the U.S., most research and government work has focused on preventing car-pedestrian crashes, rather than lessening their severity.

In January, NHTSA proposed a rule requiring electric and hybrid-electric cars to emit sounds to warn and protect bicyclists and pedestrians, particularly the visually impaired.

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